Floods have always required protective measures in the form of man-made structures where flooding of the threatened areas would lead to danger to humans and animals.
However, unusually extremely high water levels have occurred in increasing numbers for the past few years.
Among other things, changes in the climate, the regulation and narrowing of river beds, the use of water meadows as drainage zones for growing crops and the increasingly extensive surface sealing of the landscape have contributed to this serious development.
Therefore, an increasing need for additional and more effective measures can be seen, which can halt and prevent flooding in private and public areas in the long term and also in the short term.
The traditional protection and raising of river banks are masonry or heaped-up dike and river bank forms of a corresponding weight, consistency and slope angle as a permanent and immobile protection against floods.
These are usually built on the banks of rivers in municipal areas in terms of height and shape such that according to empirical values, they can prevent flooding of the river bank areas in the range of floods that occur and do not interfere with the visibility conditions at normal water levels.
Centuries-old town and city centers have developed and expanded as trade routes on the banks of rivers and the building of structures in the area of the banks must be correspondingly adapted aesthetically and functionally. In many areas, a steady increase in the height of the structures protecting river banks would unacceptably damage the quality of the built-up environment.
Mobile systems that can be deployed and also dismantled in a short time for supplementing the permanent structures built are therefore meaningful and necessary for the protection of public and private river bank areas from extreme flood levels occurring at an increased frequency.
Dams built up from sand bags and films or prepared foundations for supports, on which, for example, Europallets, supplemented by films, form protective walls that can be erected and dismantled in a short time, have been known.
Also known are Aqua Stop flood walls made of aluminum as supports, which are bolted on existing concrete foundations and then form a protective wall with walls arranged in between, which are made of horizontal dam girders and corresponding seals.
These prior-art devices for protection against floods are frequently characterized by the high weight of their component parts, which requires great effort in terms of manpower and machinery for the erection of longer sections in a short time.
Mobile systems, which require prefabricated foundations, cannot be used, in turn, in a flexible manner due to the fact that they are characteristically bound to a site and compromise the quality and the functionality of the areas requiring protection during periods without flood.